The invention relates to an expandable table. More particularly, the invention relates to a table with a circular tabletop, which is capable of expanding for the insertion of leaves to thereby provide a larger, circular, even tabletop surface.
Selection of a dining room table is often a tradeoff between maximizing seating capacity and minimizing the floor space that the table occupies when not in use. For this reason, rectangular dining room tables have been made expandable for centuries. Generally, a rectangular dining table will slide apart from its middle, and allow one or more "leaves" to be inserted therein--resulting in a longer table. After use, the leaves are removed and the table is retracted to a smaller, storage size.
Although a circular table is desirable choice by many, it has the limitation in that it is fixed in size. There have been attempts, but no one has produced a way to effectively, neatly, and reliably expand a round table in order to increase its seating capacity. Thus, one must carefully choose a table by first determining whether it should be suited for seating four, six, or eight people.
Some others have conceived of table constructions which attempt to provide round expandable surfaces. Among these are U.S. Pat. Nos. 254,388 to Schultz; 340,176 to Wardwelt Jr.; 351,101 to Fauber; 838,671 to Turner; 1,384,925 to Seiler; 3,683,825 to Sheldon; 4,782,764 to Robinson; and 4,809,619 to Piretti. Many of these tables employ overlapping leaves which "fan" outward like a camera iris, clearly resulting in a uneven table surface. Others provide mechanisms which would be cumbersome to use, impractical or expensive to construct, or would likely fail after just a few uses.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,937 to Peltier shows an expansible table which employs a separate radial guide track and arcuate activating means. Because separate means are provided for causing the sectors to move radially outward and to guide the sectors outward in a straight, radial line, the design is limited in reliability, sturdiness, and the ability to be constructed with more than four sectors. Furthermore, the construction of the guide tracks using vertically overlapping pairs of guide members ensures that the tabletop will be, at best, unevenly supported.
While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose employed, or for general use, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention as disclosed hereafter.